United by anything that’s silly and uses stupid noises, Psapp’s Galia Durant and Carim Clasmann bring their bonkers-anything-goes-gently-esoteric Psapp project to giddy fruition with the pot knocking, stick tapping, glass tinkling doll’s house of a record that stumbles, trips and falls at the feet of a waiting nation. ‘The Only Thing I Ever Wanted’ is exactly what you’ve been hoping for ever since you first heard the clutter skiffle magic brought about by debut single, ‘Tricycle’ or were indeed lucky enough to have glimpsed their non-offensive ubiquity on primetime US TV shows like Grey’s Anatomy, Nip/Tuck and The OC. Sure there’ll be those who tire reasonably quickly of their cutesy whimsicality and elliptical otherwordliness, but for every boy or girl offended by their xylophones, their skittish vocals, their rug-rat samples and their frivolous eccentricity, there’ll be those of us literally bursting out of our dungarees, putting down our Sylvia Plath antholgies and running toward such swishing, cryptic anagrams as ‘The Words’, ‘Hi’ and ‘Needle & Thread’ with as much ticklish commitment and as our funny-bones allow. Of course, there’s a Tom Waits influence, the rattling, junk-shop percussion alone testifies to that, but whereas Waits scrapes the bottom of a liquor jar to field his rasping vocal, Psapp’s Galia Durant opens a tissue-box of charm to lend a spoonful of syrupy loveliness to tracks like ‘New Rubbers’ and the elegiac ‘Make Up’.
Multi-instrumentalist and all round sonic-bricklayer, Carim Clasmann pretty much ensures the album steers clear of pure novelty and some fairly conventional song structures help anchor it in the heart of the listener. Yes, it’s a little like stepping into a wardrobe with The Cure’s Robert Smith, a dozen or so pre-schoolers and a boatload of oompa loompa people, but its encyclopaedic brief scarcely yields one single disappointment.
A lovely piece of front-parlour theatre, scripted by aliens, cast with shadows and accompanied by angels.